Sunday, December 7, 2014
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Powerful testimony
I received an email a couple weeks ago from Orange Jeep Dad (who is in the process of relocating to Idaho, yeah!!) asking me to read a deep and heartfelt piece written by his fifteen year old daughter. I read it, spellbound, from beginning to end. Speaking as a writer, I noticed a few point-of-view errors... but those were nothing next to the emotion and raw feeling in the piece.
It's long but powerful. I urge everyone to go read it here. You might also leave some encouraging comments on his post, since I'm sure his daughter would love to get feedback.
Me... I think this kid has a future as a writer if she can wring this kind of emotion from her readers at such a young age.
It's long but powerful. I urge everyone to go read it here. You might also leave some encouraging comments on his post, since I'm sure his daughter would love to get feedback.
Me... I think this kid has a future as a writer if she can wring this kind of emotion from her readers at such a young age.
Friday, December 5, 2014
A little night music
The Monday before Thanksgiving, Younger Daughter had her first performance with the Coeur d'Alene Youth Orchestra.
The performance was held in the Kroc Center, part of a much larger facility. They already had it beautifully decorated for Christmas.
Before the Youth Orchestra played, the Junior Orchestra had its performance. Some of these kids were so young their feet didn't even hit the floor. Yet overall the sound was quite decent and promising.
The Youth Orchestra has kids between the ages of 14 and 18.
Although it's not always easy to eke certain standards of dress from a group of teens, participants in the orchestra have a strict dress code: below-the-knee black dresses (or blouse/skirt combos) for the girls, tuxes for the boys. No low necklines, no sparkly jewelry that would detract from the performance. The orchestra is modeled after professional orchestras complete with a Concertmaster.
Younger Daughter was diligent about practicing and attending rehearsals, and did beautifully.
Because the orchestra was heavy on strings and light on brass, woodwind, and percussion, the conductor added two older, experienced musicians to bolster these areas. As Younger Daughter put it, it was either that or the foundation would fall apart.
Before each piece, the conductor explained a bit about the musical selection.
He chose some very ambitious pieces, such as Jupiter from The Planets (by Holst), portions of The Unfinished Symphony by Schubert, and "Into the Storm," a modern classical piece by Robert Smith commemorating the brutal 1993 snowstorm that devastated the East Coast. This was Younger Daughter's favorite piece, and she said it was the one that made her feel like she was part of something magnificent when the orchestra was playing it.
Despite the concert going so well, Younger Daughter was relieved when it was over. But they played beautifully and we were glad to attend... although during the performance we all heard the enormous crash of torrential rain on the hall's roof. Driving home was a nightmare through enormous puddles of standing water and slush on the highway, as well as a nasty mixture of snow and rain. We were relieved when that drive was over!
The performance was held in the Kroc Center, part of a much larger facility. They already had it beautifully decorated for Christmas.
Before the Youth Orchestra played, the Junior Orchestra had its performance. Some of these kids were so young their feet didn't even hit the floor. Yet overall the sound was quite decent and promising.
The Youth Orchestra has kids between the ages of 14 and 18.
Although it's not always easy to eke certain standards of dress from a group of teens, participants in the orchestra have a strict dress code: below-the-knee black dresses (or blouse/skirt combos) for the girls, tuxes for the boys. No low necklines, no sparkly jewelry that would detract from the performance. The orchestra is modeled after professional orchestras complete with a Concertmaster.
Younger Daughter was diligent about practicing and attending rehearsals, and did beautifully.
Because the orchestra was heavy on strings and light on brass, woodwind, and percussion, the conductor added two older, experienced musicians to bolster these areas. As Younger Daughter put it, it was either that or the foundation would fall apart.
Before each piece, the conductor explained a bit about the musical selection.
He chose some very ambitious pieces, such as Jupiter from The Planets (by Holst), portions of The Unfinished Symphony by Schubert, and "Into the Storm," a modern classical piece by Robert Smith commemorating the brutal 1993 snowstorm that devastated the East Coast. This was Younger Daughter's favorite piece, and she said it was the one that made her feel like she was part of something magnificent when the orchestra was playing it.
Despite the concert going so well, Younger Daughter was relieved when it was over. But they played beautifully and we were glad to attend... although during the performance we all heard the enormous crash of torrential rain on the hall's roof. Driving home was a nightmare through enormous puddles of standing water and slush on the highway, as well as a nasty mixture of snow and rain. We were relieved when that drive was over!
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Meet Tarzan
When we hatched out a batch of chicks last summer, one of our goals (besides replenishing our layers) was to obtain a second rooster.
This is Snap, our faithful male. We hatched him from an egg four years ago. He's been an excellent rooster -- virile but easy on the ladies, and never aggressive to us. Even after four years, he's still going strong.
But as much as we like good ol' Snap, he's getting up there in chicken years. Besides, with 18 hens, we need a second male to make sure the eggs are fertile (a good ratio of roosters to hens is about ten hens to every rooster).
Two years ago we hatched a beautiful white rooster whom we named King.
Sadly, King got carried off (presumably by a coyote) last summer, leaving Snap once more our solo male.
So as I said, one of our goals with hatching chicks this past summer was to get another male. As usual with straight-run hatches, about half our results were young roosters. After some observation, we culled all but one, a lovely young black male with cute little cheek patches (proving him to be part Americauna).
I named him Tarzan because his early crowing attempts -- no exaggeration -- sounded just like the old TV character. Frankly he sounded pretty pathetic. He's improving, but so far is nothing like Snap's virtuosity.
Right now he's about one-third the size of Snap, so he has a lot of growing to do. We also tuck him in the inner cage of the chicken coop at night lest he get the tar beat out of him (dominance issues, doncha know). But little Tarzan seems good-natured and (ahem) extremely virile.
We've noticed that while Snap dominates Tarzan in the coop, he pretty much leaves him alone while outside. This shows Snap is starting to slow down with age. He's still healthy and strong, but less threatened by another rooster's presence. Such is life.
Meanwhile, meet Tarzan.
This is Snap, our faithful male. We hatched him from an egg four years ago. He's been an excellent rooster -- virile but easy on the ladies, and never aggressive to us. Even after four years, he's still going strong.
But as much as we like good ol' Snap, he's getting up there in chicken years. Besides, with 18 hens, we need a second male to make sure the eggs are fertile (a good ratio of roosters to hens is about ten hens to every rooster).
Two years ago we hatched a beautiful white rooster whom we named King.
Sadly, King got carried off (presumably by a coyote) last summer, leaving Snap once more our solo male.
So as I said, one of our goals with hatching chicks this past summer was to get another male. As usual with straight-run hatches, about half our results were young roosters. After some observation, we culled all but one, a lovely young black male with cute little cheek patches (proving him to be part Americauna).
I named him Tarzan because his early crowing attempts -- no exaggeration -- sounded just like the old TV character. Frankly he sounded pretty pathetic. He's improving, but so far is nothing like Snap's virtuosity.
Right now he's about one-third the size of Snap, so he has a lot of growing to do. We also tuck him in the inner cage of the chicken coop at night lest he get the tar beat out of him (dominance issues, doncha know). But little Tarzan seems good-natured and (ahem) extremely virile.
We've noticed that while Snap dominates Tarzan in the coop, he pretty much leaves him alone while outside. This shows Snap is starting to slow down with age. He's still healthy and strong, but less threatened by another rooster's presence. Such is life.
Meanwhile, meet Tarzan.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
A question of tinder
I was starting a fire in the woodstove the other day when a question occurred to me.
We build our fires by layering first tinder (crumpled newspapers), then kindling, then small splits, then finally log splits.
A fire is easy to start and takes me about two minutes in the morning to get going (not counting adding log splits as the fire heats up).
But... what if we didn't have newspapers to use as tinder?
We go through a lot of newspapers in our house, primarily for wrapping tankards...
...protecting work surfaces...
...and of course tinder for fires.
In fact newspapers are so easy to use for tinder that I can't imagine what I would use in their place to start a fire in the morning.
So what do you recommend as a substitute? We can't depend on dryer lint because we don't use our dryer (preferring our hanging and standing clothes racks).
Besides, if the "bleep" ever hits the fan, dryer lint won't be available anyway.
I'm open to other ideas of what kinds of tinder people could use in a post-"bleep" situation. I know cattail fluff is good. Anything else?
We build our fires by layering first tinder (crumpled newspapers), then kindling, then small splits, then finally log splits.
A fire is easy to start and takes me about two minutes in the morning to get going (not counting adding log splits as the fire heats up).
But... what if we didn't have newspapers to use as tinder?
We go through a lot of newspapers in our house, primarily for wrapping tankards...
...protecting work surfaces...
...and of course tinder for fires.
In fact newspapers are so easy to use for tinder that I can't imagine what I would use in their place to start a fire in the morning.
So what do you recommend as a substitute? We can't depend on dryer lint because we don't use our dryer (preferring our hanging and standing clothes racks).
Besides, if the "bleep" ever hits the fan, dryer lint won't be available anyway.
I'm open to other ideas of what kinds of tinder people could use in a post-"bleep" situation. I know cattail fluff is good. Anything else?
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Cleaning the barn
After Polly's scary escapade a couple weeks ago, many of you have inquired how she's doing. I'm pleased to report -- she's fine!
But since then, I've started tucking both her and Matilda into the barn at night. Polly and little Chuck fit into a smaller pen...
...and Matilda and her yearling heifer Amy get the larger stall. Both our Jerseys are fairly low on the pecking order in the herd, so in inclement weather they're likely to get booted out from under the barn awning and have to suffer through rain or snow without shelter.
Because the barn stalls are now in daily use, I decided it was time to give them a good deep cleaning. We'd had a light dusting of snow...
...but at least it was dry. (We've since had both torrential rain and subfreezing temperatures, but I got the barn done before conditions got too soppy.)
It was a few solid hours of pitchfork work.
I dumped the debris on the compost pile, something the chickens appreciated deeply.
At last the pens were clean, and I spread them with fresh straw. Now daily maintenance will be much easier -- muck out the previous night's soiled material, spread fresh straw, fill their water buckets, and they're set.
In the last couple of weeks, we've toggled between bouts of torrential rain and bouts near-zero-degree (Fahrenheit) temps.
We've had a few snow flurries come in, the first of the year.
Here we're actually following our neighbor (in the first vehicle with the hazard lights) who drives the county snowplow, among other things.
We've had the occasional frozen hose when we fail to drain it properly.
We're grateful for our stock tank heaters, which keep the water tanks free of ice for the livestock.
In such weather, it makes me feel better to know Polly and Matilda and their calves are under shelter.
But since then, I've started tucking both her and Matilda into the barn at night. Polly and little Chuck fit into a smaller pen...
...and Matilda and her yearling heifer Amy get the larger stall. Both our Jerseys are fairly low on the pecking order in the herd, so in inclement weather they're likely to get booted out from under the barn awning and have to suffer through rain or snow without shelter.
Because the barn stalls are now in daily use, I decided it was time to give them a good deep cleaning. We'd had a light dusting of snow...
...but at least it was dry. (We've since had both torrential rain and subfreezing temperatures, but I got the barn done before conditions got too soppy.)
It was a few solid hours of pitchfork work.
I dumped the debris on the compost pile, something the chickens appreciated deeply.
At last the pens were clean, and I spread them with fresh straw. Now daily maintenance will be much easier -- muck out the previous night's soiled material, spread fresh straw, fill their water buckets, and they're set.
In the last couple of weeks, we've toggled between bouts of torrential rain and bouts near-zero-degree (Fahrenheit) temps.
We've had a few snow flurries come in, the first of the year.
Here we're actually following our neighbor (in the first vehicle with the hazard lights) who drives the county snowplow, among other things.
We've had the occasional frozen hose when we fail to drain it properly.
We're grateful for our stock tank heaters, which keep the water tanks free of ice for the livestock.
In such weather, it makes me feel better to know Polly and Matilda and their calves are under shelter.
Monday, December 1, 2014
Digital spying
Here's the flashlight I keep in my purse at all times. It has three beam settings (low, high, strobe) and can put out 250 lumens. We get these particular flashlights in three-packs from Costco for $15 and they're excellent little tools. We have three or four hanging by the door. We keep a couple in every vehicle. And I keep one in my purse.
Apparently it's a good thing I'm using this flashlight because of a fascinating (and horrifying) bit of news I just learned. It seems the seemingly innocent flashlight app on your smart phone is, in fact, a digital spying unit.
Reader Fred sent this link which tells how a representative from Snoopwall.com learned 500 million people (half a billion!!) are infected with a spy virus on their smart phones through their flashlight app and are entirely unaware of it. The top ten flashlight apps downloadable from Google are all malware which transfer names, addresses, credit card info, banking info, family photos, videos, GPS location, as well as whatever info you have on friends and relatives. These data primarily go to China, India, and Russia.
Apparently even un-installing the flashlight app doesn't work because they are infected with Trojans which linger in the background even if the app is removed. The smart phones must be factory-reset in order to get rid of the malware. The only flashlight apps are that "just" flashlight apps are under 100 kb. The malware apps are on the order of 1.2 mb to 5 mb.
Hard on the heels of this story is a recent story from the Washington Post entitled HappyTracksgiving: How your travels are tracked this holiday season. This article details just how much spying and tracking is taking place on a routine basis. Virtually all means of travel is monitored through cameras, license-plate recognition software, facial recognition software, and other methods. This takes place in airports and airplanes, train stations, buses, car services, toll payment systems, through surveillance cameras on streets and in stores, as well as "the rising use of overhead surveillance, from airplanes, drones, and aerostats, those blimp-like craft floating above some border areas."
To those like me who want to throw up their hands in disgust and just go for a walk in the woods, the article continues: "What about a horse on backwoods trails? Hot air balloon? Offroad mountain bike? Well, even if you manage to avoid the ground cameras and the drones, there’s still that pesky phone in your pocket. If you’ve flipped on location services for your iPhone, maybe so Google Maps can keep you from getting lost, Apple and Google both are getting location data from you. So are the operators of many others apps. / Too paranoid to use a smartphone? Even the oldest, dumbest flip phone has to communicate with cell towers in order to work, meaning Verizon or AT&T – and potentially the government – know what cell tower your phone is using and in some situations can remotely activate GPS systems. Location technology initially developed for 911 calls also can estimate how close you are to various towers, making it easier to home in on your exact coordinates. Altitude measurements – revealing what floor you are on -- are next."
But we're not supposed to be paranoid. After all, "they" are not specifically looking for us. As the article explains, "Bear in mind that all these systems operate passively, continuously, even if nobody is looking for you. If you are an actual target of the authorities –- be it your government or somebody else’s -- there are even more powerful tools available. Surveillance companies sell malicious software to install on smartphones for tracking locations, browsing your e-mail and activating video cameras and microphones."
Needless to say, all online activities -- including the contents of this blog -- are also tracked. Cheery thought, no?
We don't have smart phones and only our basic-model cell phones are only turned on while traveling, but that's no longer good enough. Apparently we must just accept the fact that we are being continuously tracked, each and every one of us, from cradle to grave.
Nonetheless I think I'll stick to my purse flashlight. At least it doesn't spy on me.
Apparently it's a good thing I'm using this flashlight because of a fascinating (and horrifying) bit of news I just learned. It seems the seemingly innocent flashlight app on your smart phone is, in fact, a digital spying unit.
Reader Fred sent this link which tells how a representative from Snoopwall.com learned 500 million people (half a billion!!) are infected with a spy virus on their smart phones through their flashlight app and are entirely unaware of it. The top ten flashlight apps downloadable from Google are all malware which transfer names, addresses, credit card info, banking info, family photos, videos, GPS location, as well as whatever info you have on friends and relatives. These data primarily go to China, India, and Russia.
Apparently even un-installing the flashlight app doesn't work because they are infected with Trojans which linger in the background even if the app is removed. The smart phones must be factory-reset in order to get rid of the malware. The only flashlight apps are that "just" flashlight apps are under 100 kb. The malware apps are on the order of 1.2 mb to 5 mb.
Hard on the heels of this story is a recent story from the Washington Post entitled HappyTracksgiving: How your travels are tracked this holiday season. This article details just how much spying and tracking is taking place on a routine basis. Virtually all means of travel is monitored through cameras, license-plate recognition software, facial recognition software, and other methods. This takes place in airports and airplanes, train stations, buses, car services, toll payment systems, through surveillance cameras on streets and in stores, as well as "the rising use of overhead surveillance, from airplanes, drones, and aerostats, those blimp-like craft floating above some border areas."
To those like me who want to throw up their hands in disgust and just go for a walk in the woods, the article continues: "What about a horse on backwoods trails? Hot air balloon? Offroad mountain bike? Well, even if you manage to avoid the ground cameras and the drones, there’s still that pesky phone in your pocket. If you’ve flipped on location services for your iPhone, maybe so Google Maps can keep you from getting lost, Apple and Google both are getting location data from you. So are the operators of many others apps. / Too paranoid to use a smartphone? Even the oldest, dumbest flip phone has to communicate with cell towers in order to work, meaning Verizon or AT&T – and potentially the government – know what cell tower your phone is using and in some situations can remotely activate GPS systems. Location technology initially developed for 911 calls also can estimate how close you are to various towers, making it easier to home in on your exact coordinates. Altitude measurements – revealing what floor you are on -- are next."
But we're not supposed to be paranoid. After all, "they" are not specifically looking for us. As the article explains, "Bear in mind that all these systems operate passively, continuously, even if nobody is looking for you. If you are an actual target of the authorities –- be it your government or somebody else’s -- there are even more powerful tools available. Surveillance companies sell malicious software to install on smartphones for tracking locations, browsing your e-mail and activating video cameras and microphones."
Needless to say, all online activities -- including the contents of this blog -- are also tracked. Cheery thought, no?
We don't have smart phones and only our basic-model cell phones are only turned on while traveling, but that's no longer good enough. Apparently we must just accept the fact that we are being continuously tracked, each and every one of us, from cradle to grave.
Nonetheless I think I'll stick to my purse flashlight. At least it doesn't spy on me.
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